1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a chute for feeding one or more articles to a plurality of delivery lanes. This chute can receive items from a sorter or other input device. Forward travel momentum of items fed to the chute can be slowed in two ways. Either a trough with an upwardly curved wall or an upwardly inclined flipper door can be used as will be described. Downstream from the trough or upper flipper door portion, a lower flipper door can be provided for delivering the articles to one of a plurality of delivery lanes. These delivery lanes are vertically arranged one above the other with the final discharge station being located at the end of each lane.
2. Description of the Background Art
Various chutes are known for receiving articles. For example, a spiral chute can be used for receiving an article from a sorter. Such chutes, however, have limited capacity in that only one discharge location is provided per chute and handling of some objects is not appropriate for all applications.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a chute which will handle objects without damaging them. In addition, it is a further object of the present invention to provide a chute with increased capacity.
Further scope of applicability of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description given hereinafter. However, it should be understood that the detailed description and specific examples, while indicating preferred embodiments of the invention, are given by way of illustration only, since various changes and modifications within the spirit and scope of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this detailed description.